Radio New Zealand - Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa

Temaru resumes Tahiti decolonisation lobbying at UN

Posted at 01:55 on 25 February, 2013 UTC

French Polynesia’s president, Oscar Temaru, has flown to New York for a third time in three months to lobby for the territory to be reinscribed on the UN decolonisation list.

A briefing has been scheduled this week at the Solomon Islands UN mission as Mr Temaru hopes to have the bid on the UN General Assembly’s agenda after it won formal backing from Nauru and Tuvalu.

This also comes as the UN’s Special Committee on Decolonisation has been told by the Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, to find new ways of dealing with the 16 colonies left, saying the international community is more convinced than ever that colonialism has no place in the modern world.

80 former colonies have gained independence since the creation of the UN, and among the 16 left are New Caledonia, American Samoa, Guam, Pitcairn, Tokelau, and the Falkland Islands.